Chapter 4. Goblin Soul

“Morning Emma, geezer.” I answered the knocking at my tiny studio apartment door at around 9am.

“Let’s go Ken! A large Level E goblin only dungeon is opening up in 10 minutes in Ginza! If we get lucky and not that many people go for it, we will make it to 100k with this one dungeon!” Emma said happily.

How is this girl always so energetic and cheerful even this early I wondered? Do rich people get special sleep or food that a lowly orphan like me never gets to experience?

While I would have preferred just the two of us going around by the subway instead of having this annoyance spying on every move I make, I decided that getting to ride around in a fancy luxurious limo while sipping on some expensive juice is not that bad once in a while even if I had to put up with this annoying geezer who thinks I’m always up to no good. I mean he might not be totally wrong but still, fuck him!

Arriving in the fancy business district of Ginza where high end shops and fancy rich people littered the streets, little poor me had never set foot into any of the shops or restaurants in this part of the city. One of those days, I told myself, I will be so rich and famous I could eat at one of those restaurants and pay 50,000 yen for a steak without blinking an eye.

Since it’s a Saturday, the queue to get inside the dungeon was pretty fucking long and as I got in line with Emma, Albert silently drove away to finally let us have some alone time.

“What does that geezer do all day while not stalking you?” I wondered.

“Don’t be rude to Albert, Ken. I know he gives you a hard time but if he didn’t trust you, he would have never left me alone with you.” Emma replied.

“He should just leave you alone with me in my room then.” I replied, doubting that the butler had an ounce of trust in me with the way he always looked at me.

“Yea, I doubt he would ever have that much trust in you. Anyways, I know he still does errands for my father and does some of the corporate things here in Japan since my dad went back to New York. But I don’t really know much about what he does.” Emma answered, failing to provide me with any useful information.

With the improvement in technology, dungeon detection is at a level where no matter how isolated or hidden a dungeon’s location is, the country that owns the area will have the appropriate counter measurements long before the monsters inside could gain sentience.

While it’s not uncommon for dungeons to spawn in isolated areas, it would seem that the AI are pretty stupid even after 500 years and most of the dungeons happens to spawn in large cities like here in Tokyo and they act more as a way for hero wannabes to gain exp and for large guilds around the world to gain more wealth, power and control.

As far as I am concerned, the whole AI trying to rise up and take over the world seems more like a fairytale than reality. I am just here trying to get as strong as possible, join Tokyo Academy, get my license, eventually get strong enough to be part of the 50 world elites, get rich, marry my blondie and make that geezer Albert my servant.

“FINALLY! We better get some large dense mobs after waiting for this long.” I complained as we finally got inside the dungeon after waiting for over 30 minutes.

While I complained, Emma was busy pulling up the dungeon map on her screen to see the entire layout and trying to figure out where the best spots would be for us to have the highest chance of encountering large mobs and not run into other parties.

Before you call me a lazyass for making my blondie do all the work. Just know that it cost gold to register your party to enter a dungeons, it cost gold to have trackers to see when and where dungeons will appear, it cost gold to know which types of dungeon will spawn, it cost gold to have alerts, and of course, it cost fucking more gold to have a map layout after entering a dungeon.

As much as I would like to contribute to our party’s overall expense, I have to work at a Seven fucking Eleven to pay for my studio apartment that’s literally just a single room with my bed, a chair, a small desk and a tiny bathroom. I literally don’t even have a place to cook even if I wanted to and mostly just eat microwaved Seven Eleven meals if I’m not freeloading off Emma.

So no, shut up about me making Emma pay for all of our party’s expenses when she is the daughter of a multi-billionaire while I am here making a fucking 1000 yen an hour working part time as a Seven Eleven clerk. Besides, I am a nice enough gentleman to always split our party’s earnings 50/50 with her and have never asked her to buy me any expensive gear so I could do other dungeons instead of just slaying slimes.

Sure, all of the alerts, and other things she pays far exceeds what we have ever earned from the dungeons. But what matters is my gesture to her and that I am letting her have half of our share when she literally has so much money she could wipe her ass with 10,000 yen bills if she ever felt the desire to do so.

After scanning the map and marking the possible locations. Emma shared her pinpoints with my sad looking empty map that lacked any details to areas unexplored as we headed off to the closest location hoping to run into some big mobs.

“99,998. 99,999. 100,000! DIE YOU UGLY PIECES OF GREEN SHIT!” I screamed as I sent the 100,000th fucking goblin high into the air with a epic kick as it exploded into pixels. Please! I hoped and prayed for that popup window to appear.

“EMMA! I got another popup! Let’s finish this shit off and get out of here to check on my new ability!” I said happily to my overpowered blondie as she easily wiped out the remaining goblin in this low level dungeon that’s way too easy for her.

After paying some gold, Emma got us teleported out without having to backtrack all the way back to the entrance.

“Hurry up and tell me what you gained!” Emma asked me impatiently after we got teleported out of the dungeon back onto the fancy streets of Ginza.

Checking my window while telling Emma to calm down, I read the popup to her while also eagerly wanting to know how badass of a skill I have just gained after slaying something superior to the lowly fucking slimes.

“Passive skill acquired. Goblin Soul. Passive bonus(Always Active), +5 to all basic stats, +50 to HP, +50 to MP, +10 to dagger mastery.”

“Mmm, it’s pretty good! 55 points to stats, 50 hp and mp and if you ever find a good dagger, it’s always good to have some extra bonus power!” Emma said in her usual cheery voice to me.

“Emma, you don’t have to pretend to be impressed. This passive fucking sucks ass! I got what? Maybe 2-3 levels worth of stats for someone average? You gained 4 levels during this 2 months period right? How many stats did you gain? At least give me more fucking stats or let this freaking thing level!” I complained after grinding for 2 fucking months for some ass skill.

“Well, I gained 320 hp and 470 mp. Mmm, my vita went up by 8, str went up by 6, dex up 10, int up 10, att up 5, matt up 12, def up 6, mdef up 8, speed up 10, luck up 15 and crit up 10. So overall, I also gained 100 stat points!” Emma replied, giving me the detailed breakdown on all the stats she gained in the past 4 levels.

Like seriously girl? I was just asking for a rough estimate, how did you even remember the exact stats from 4 levels ago anyways? Are you some hidden genius on top of being extremely lucky, beautiful and rich? Maybe I should just stop trying to be a hero and instead try to get in your pants and have you support me for life instead.

“Exactly, this fucking passive that required me to slay a hundred fucking thousand goblins give me like 2 levels worth of stats and no additional skills! It’s like I actually probably only gained a shit item worth of power for slaying 100k goblins! You know stats are just the icing on the cake for leveling and the fucking skills is the actual important part!

If I get another dud like those green bastards, there's no way I would gain enough stats or skills to make it into Tokyo Academy in only 6 months! Right now, I am like a fucking turtle that’s crawling around with a heavy shell but does no damage!” I complained some more, cursing at those green fuckers that barely provided me any power up.

“Better than nothing right? At least we now know you will most likely gain different passives or maybe active skills for killing 100k of a monster type. Oh! Did the new passive stack on defense?” Emma asked, ignoring my complaining.

Quickly looking at my stats screen to see if my two passives stacked with each other. I was at least happy to see that indeed, the two passives counted as separate entities as my total defense now has an additional (+5) at the end and I didn’t end up wasting any of my precious stats points.

“Guess it’s back to the drawing board Emma. We need to find whatever low level, physical damage, high density mobs and get back to slaying. Hopefully whatever else we get doesn't turn into more goblins. I don’t want to see those shitters ever again.”

Yes, I like to complain a lot and cuss a lot. I grew up in an orphanage with a bunch of the fuckers that ended up in gangs and jail, what the fuck did you expect from me? I ain’t no fancy high class tea sipper with their pinky pointing so don’t expect me to complain any less especially if whatever mob I try to slay next end up as shitty as those fucking midget green motherfuckers!